Ellen’s Work Blog
November 2024
I am starting November with an upbeat message.
I want to rally everyone around a simple idea of working together. This is a perfect time to make a loud noise for collaboration here and across the country. And let’s have it be something meaningful for all of us.
This is not a new concept for anyone who hangs around the mural project. Through the years, we have moved mountains at AMP simply by working together, each one of us recognizing and celebrating what makes us distinct, different, and special. Paul Hawken, our Advisor on the Regeneration Project, says it perfectly: “each of us is multitudes.”
So, jump-starting this idea, this past Monday, we invited 100 kids and teachers from ten schools across Connecticut to AMP for our first big meeting for Regeneration. From Hartford to Fairfield and everywhere in between, the students arrived in buses and vans. They spent the day together, getting to know each other and learning about their assignment for the next six months: to address the most important threat for all of us on this earth, global warming—and the resulting disappearance of clean water, wildlife, and natural habitats for all of us on the planet.
When I am losing hope about reasonable solutions to problems, I turn to young people who, most times, have a much better handle on it. To begin, they have no ulterior motive but to solve the actual problem as they see it. Once the Regeneration Project is finished and installed in the spring, it is going to blow everyone’s mind who visits AMP and takes it in. These kids are in charge of the creation and the narrative. Whatever comes of this, the students will own it.
It is a great time for all of us older guys to take notice.
